


dahlias and roses

by TheThirdTemptationOfParis



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Dahlias and Roses, Juno is a lil dumb, Other, Post-Happy Birthday Mista Steel, my brain has been fixated on those damn flowers so take this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:15:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25341559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheThirdTemptationOfParis/pseuds/TheThirdTemptationOfParis
Summary: Dahlias and roses... huh.
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Comments: 8
Kudos: 62





	dahlias and roses

Juno didn’t know why the bouquet captured his attention the way it did. Probably just a coincidence. Dahlias and roses do look nice together. Maybe Rita was right, just a client that knew to send the flowers to Rita’s. She certainly had a way of talking to them and telling them things without remembering. But dahlias and roses. Why did those two words fit the way they did?

He forgot about them over the course of the night with Rita. He didn’t remember much about the movie they saw, but Rita seemed to enjoy it, as she always did. Juno didn’t doubt that the plot would show up in some long winded explanation that only Rita fully understood. He smiled at the thought, and fully realized how Rita had grown on him over the last twenty years. Maybe Khan had been right about that Christmas thing (Rita had explained the whole conversation to him). 

He had planned to drop Rita off in front of her house and continue on his way, but before he could get too far, Rita called, “Oh, Mista Steel! Your flowers!” She darted inside and returned with them in a nice vase, which made Juno reel in confusion for a minute.

“Rita, where did you find a vase? Especially under the rubble of all your paper spaceships?”

“Don’t worry about it, boss. There’s a system in there that makes sense only to me, and I knew exactly where this was. Now take these flowers and make sure you keep them alive. I would hate to see them die because you forgot about them.”

Juno held the vase carefully in his hands, his eye dancing over the delicate petals. He knew that there was some meaning to bouquets and flowers centuries ago on earth, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember what any of them meant. And while the flowers he held obviously had some sort of meaning to whoever sent them, he knew it wasn’t anything to do with some long lost earth code. 

“Mista Steel?” Rita said, cocking her head to the side like she does every time she studies him, “Are you okay?”

Juno cleared his throat before answering, “Rita, did you get a good look at who delivered the flowers?”

Rita’s mouth twisted as she thought, her head still cocked to the side, “Not really, boss. He was just another delivery guy, nothing super special about him. Why?”

“No reason, just… forget I said anything. Thanks for the vase, and the great night, Rita.”

“You’re welcome. Happy birthday, Mista Steel.” 

***

The next day, the flowers caught his eye more than he would’ve thought possible. He tried to write it off, like it was just the pop of color they gave his drab apartment, but deep down he knew there was something special, something specific about these flowers. 

The card attached to them didn’t give him any hints either. No handwriting, just a typed and printed out card tied to them stem of a particularly red rose with a white ribbon. Just a simple ‘Happy birthday, Juno.’ No threat, no specifications, just that. He thought maybe they had been from Cecil for a bit, the petals a shade of red that would’ve caught his eye, but it didn’t stick. Cecil wasn’t the type to buy flowers. Cass wasn’t either, and she couldn’t have gotten them seeing as she had been in lock up since—

Since the case he had worked with Nureyev. 

When he thought the name, _Nureyev_ , it all hit him like a ton of bricks.

_Hang on, what the hell kind of name is Dahlia Rose?!_

_Yours, now! Ta, Dahlia dearest!_

“Dahlias and roses… I’m such an idiot.”

Nureyev sent him these flowers, probably risked his neck to deliver them off the grid, and Juno was too stupid to realize immediately that they were from him. Peter Nureyev, the man he had left alone in a hotel room in Hyperion City after everything they had gone through together, had sent him flowers on his birthday. 

It was enough to make Juno cry.

So he did.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a lil diddy because I can't stop thinking about THOSE GODDAMN FLOWERS.


End file.
